Dana White growing fond of UFC rankings after initial reluctance

Dana White growing fond of UFC rankings after initial reluctance

UFC President Dana White has criticized the media in the past over where they’ve placed some fighters in the official UFC rankings, but as a whole, he said he approves of the concept.

“I like it,” White recently told MMAjunkie of the UFC rankings. “I wasn’t crazy about it in the beginning. I love it now.”

The official UFC rankings are posted on the organization’s website. Approximately 50 journalists from across the globe – though only a handful from the sport’s bigger media outlets – rank the top 15 fighters in nine current UFC divisions (rankings for the recently launched women’s strawweight division have yet to be launched), as well as a pound-for-pound list. Each voting member’s ballot can be viewed.

Since its introduction in February 2013, the UFC rankings have shown up on UFC broadcasts, FOX Sports studio shows, the organization’s official magazine and other platforms. They’re not without some controversy, but collectively, the voting members usually produce serviceable lists.

The rankings originally started as simple top-10 lists for each division, but with time, they’ve expanded to top 15 lists that are updated every Monday following an event.

It’s far from a perfect system, but White said it’s getting better. Many hardcore MMA fans don’t put much stock into the number beside a fighter’s name, and some fighters have said as much, too. According to White, though, the rankings aren’t meant for hardcore fans or fighters. Instead, he said, the rankings were created for the benefit of casual fans who many not follow the UFC closely.

Many pro sports provide some type of ranking or standing to indicate where a player or team stands, and the UFC wanted to follow suit.

“(It’s for) people who are just casually tuning in to FOX,” White said. “Say you flip through the television. There are 57,000 college football games on, and you see No. 2 vs. No. 3. You think, ‘This must be a pretty important game. This is No. 2 and No. 3!’ So, even if you’re uneducated about it, everyone understands what that means.”